Chris's Random Ramblings

I mentioned to a few people at the conference that I was thinking of
using the same codebase for the Hackfest at next years
Linux.conf.au. So to be fair I thought I should mention it more
publically as well.

I'm still thinking about different ways we could run the
competition - perhaps a cyborg type competition where humans play
against each other with the help of AI programs. I'd welcome any ideas
that people may have. In the meantime there is quite a lot of work to
be done on the server. It really needs a test suite and given the
experience of running the competition this year there are quite a few
features that I want to add in addition to the standard spellcast
rules.

The Linux.conf.au 2005
organising committee arranged for speakers at the conference to go on
an early morning balloon ride over Canberra as a thank-you gift for
speaking at the conference. On Thursday morning, Kelly and I went along with some
of the speakers, meeting at the Hyatt hotel at 5:30am.

We drove along with the basket and uninflated balloon to a field
near Canberra airport where our balloon and 2 others were setup for
flight. The winds were blowing in different direction compared to the
previous time I had been on a balloon ride, and this time we headed
westward over parliament house towards Schrivner Dam. It was a
beautifully clear morning and visibility to the surrounding mountains
very clear.

About halfway through the flight, there was a rather strong smell
of burning hair, and I turned around to see Kelly patting at her hair
which was on fire. It turns out that some leaves had fallen from
inside the balloon and caught fire as they fell through the
burners. Luckily Kelly only lost a small amount of hair. A small part
of my jacket was melted as well. Afterwards the pilot claimed that it
has never happened in a balloon he has piloted before, though
apparently someone else was singed during the inflation of the balloon
the next morning.